Bill Barol

Monkey feel vindicated that U.S. Copyright Office rule Bad Man ineligible to claim Monkey Selfie as intellectual property. Monkey advised by counsel not to comment while issue being adjudicated, but now that ruling has been issued Monkey grateful to be able to speak out for first time, and perhaps provide valuable context.

When Monkey snatch camera from Bad Man and run hooting into tall grass, Monkey see it as liberating act of self-expression, and, yes, perhaps even blow against human cultural hegemony. The fact that Monkey not realize at first that camera was camera and try to eat it, irrelevant. Once Monkey recognize that device make clicky sound, Monkey become fascinated. In that moment, Monkey reborn as Artist.

Monkey not entirely comfortable with camera at first. Monkey know little of lighting or composition. Rule of thirds as strange and distant to Monkey in those first few moments as dark side of big thing in night sky. Monkey shoot countless images of tree canopies and banyan roots, real beginner stuff. Monkey also attempt to use camera as blunt instrument to crack open mangosteen. This just heedlessness. But Monkey learn quick, and after a few hundred exposures, why, Monkey really begin to get hang of thing. (Note to young monkey photographers: film is hard to beat for definition and clarity, but digital really lets novices shoot with abandon, and this the best way to learn.)

“A government scientist cleaning out a storage room last week at a lab on the National Institutes of Health’s Bethesda campus found decades-old vials of smallpox. … This is the first time the deadly virus has been discovered outside the only two facilities in the world where smallpox samples are allowed, by international agreement, to be stored—a highly secure lab at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta and a virology and biotechnology research center in Novosibirsk, Russia.”

Two rapid blinks: Good morning. As you know, I have been taken hostage. The armed, dead-eyed gentlemen you see flanking me in this video are Stavro and Daaud, two of my captors. I am going to attempt to convey a private message to you by blinking out a series of coded communications, for which this is the key.

Three rapid blinks: Same as above, but replace “Good morning” with “Good afternoon” (as necessary).

Four rapid blinks: Same as above, but replace “Good afternoon” with “Good evening” (as necessary).

Skyler was grouchy. The car wash smelled funny, like the chemicals they use to wash cars. Suddenly, Saul drove up and said something about a sandwich. Skyler just sort of stared at him, her soul being all dead and rotten from living with the terrible secret of Walt being a meth kingpin. She had a lot to think about, between the car wash and the kids and the dead rottenness of her soul, not that that was her fault. “Sandwich,” Saul said, snapping his fingers. “Sandwich.” And Skyler went to the place where the sandwiches were and got him one.

* * *

“Damn, Skinny Pete,” Badger said. “I never knew you had such a boss collection of lanyards!”

“You know it, bro,” Skinny Pete said proudly. “I learned how to make lanyards at Camp Watonka when I was eleven, and I was the lanyard king, yo.”

Think about home. Is home a place? No. Home is a box you fill with memories and aspirations. But it is also itself a memory, an aspiration. It’s a feeling. And feelings aren’t steady state. Feelings change. You pass through feelings. Or do feelings pass through you?

Right. But what I asked you is, when are you going home? Like, any time soon? I mean, you have a home, right?

Some people have homes. But everybody’s home has them. They carry it with them and keep it close. Home is a place in the heart.

Jesus, we’re really not going to get anywhere with this, are we? Look, we didn’t mind putting you up for a while. I gather you had sort of a rough childhood and things haven’t always— Oh God, look at this: he’s staring off into space again.

[Lies on bed; sleeps for three hours; wakes up drenched in sweat with covers twisted around body.]

GODDAM IT, WHAT PART OF “LEAVE ME ALONE” DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I’M FREEZING.

[Flings twisted covers aside; sleeps for twenty more minutes.]

All right, look: it’s pretty clear you figured out a way to cloud my mind while I was sleeping and somehow tighten the skin of my skull, or maybe enlarge the skull bone itself, which would have the same result. The point is, however you did it, you did it, and what’s done is done. No hard feelings. I can even admire the ingenuity of it. What I need for you to do now, though, and I mean right now, is reduce the pressure on my temples by whatever means may be appropriate, whether it’s, you know, loosening the skin or slightly reducing the bone mass of the skull, because I swear to God I can smell time.

“For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.” —the Times, January 30, 2013

Metropolitan Diary

Dear Diary:

Riding the uptown 1 train on a recent Tuesday, I glanced across the aisle to see a distinguished older gentleman crying softly into a pocket-handkerchief. The people around him were studiously ignoring his distress—New Yorkers!—so I took it upon myself to ask what the matter was. He buttoned his jacket a little tighter and gave me a sad but kindly look.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be fine. I’m just suffering the existential burden that comes from laboring under the crushing yoke of free-market capitalism.”

Look, it’s not like I’m crazy. It’s not like I think my drone is a Toyota Camry or something. My eyes are wide open and I know that my drone—it’s a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper—is technically a killing machine. It’s Death from the Skies. It’s Rolling Thunder. But, and this is really the point I want to make, there’s so much more to it than that. And anybody who puts my drone in that cubbyhole is missing out on a lot.

For starters? My drone is the conversation-starter to end all conversation-starters. I don’t mean “end” in a killing way. What I mean is, when I have it parked in my driveway people will slow down and gawk and just start shouting stuff right there in the street. They’ll roll down their windows and yell things like “Jesus, what the hell is that thing?” or “Are you in the Air Force?” or “Did you steal that from the Air Force?” or “Holy mother of God, I think that’s a Predator drone!” I get a kick out of that one, because—this is a good example of the misconceptions about my drone—the Predator is a whole other species of bird. (That’s what we droniacs call them: birds. And we call ourselves droniacs.) The Predator is a killer / scout and used only secondarily against dynamic execution targets, while the Reaper is a hunter / killer first and an intelligence-collection asset second. Totally the opposite kind of deal. I mean, you’d no more primarily task a Reaper to collect intel than you’d let the kid from the Safeway take out your gall bladder. It’s apples and oranges.

Smile. Look straight into the camera and smile widely. It’s not even necessary to talk while you’re smiling and, in fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. Talking gets in the way of smiling, so if you have a choice between smiling and talking, smile. Just unleash that old million-watter. The audience may get uneasy when you’ve been staring into the camera and smiling broadly and silently for five minutes or so, and the moderator will probably try to get you to say something. Don’t be bullied. People like a guy who smiles. They’ll come around. Hang in there.